I know the restaurants on Royal Caribbean are top-notch. At Portofino's my husband still says he had the best flourless chocolate cake ever and the tiramasu was to die for! Service was a little slow so they comped our bar bill!!! I will definitely give the Carnival restaurant a try.

Originally posted by Cortney:
I've been on both RCCL (once) and Carnival (twice) and I would say overall we preferred Carnival. Overall I would say Carnival's buffet is far superior, RCCL had the slight edge in the main dining room and had better production shows, but we liked the layout, style and decor of Carnival better (even if it is quite...eye-popping at first Carnival's staterooms also were larger and had a better layout. But I doubt you'll be disappointed either way!

You can't just cruise one time on any cruise line and make a fair judgement.

Originally posted by christinelee10:
Thanks for all the great information everyone. We're going with a tour group, so I don't know exactly where my cabin is going to be. I did ask for midship and not down too low. Many people have said that Carnival has much better shows (which I love) so I'm really looking forward to it!! One more question......is the restaurant that is $30/person worth it......we would like to try it one night?

My husband question to that is why pay $30 per person when you get food for free. Do anyone have an answer that I can tell him regarding this????? Sorry not to get off of the topic but it was swaying this way........

We also felt the same as you do about paying $30 for a dinner when the food was already paid for. We won a dinner to that dining room. It is well worth the extra money. The food is made for you. The presentation is fabulous. You are served stuff that you would never get in the dining room. If you were to dine like that in a comparable restuarant I am sure that the bill would be over $125 pp. Every time after that we have made a reservation. The problem is that you will be served and eat too much. It may ruin the rest of the cruise because you will be stuffed.

I, for one seldom ever do the speciatly restaurants unless I'm celebrating something during my cruise. I enjoy the dining room and the social aspects more than having a spectacular meal at add'l cost. I agree they provide exceptional food, better than the dining room which is prepared in mass. I always feel like I missed something on the nights I miss the dining room and catching up on what my tablemates did that day and what everyone is doing for the evening entertainment. I've been very lucky and always found at least one couple, sometimes more, that we've hit it off with and enjoy not only dining with but hanging around with outside the dining room. On one cruise everybody at our table was a blast and we all met up for visits to the casino, lounges and shows, it was like we had a group cruise and had our own little group. The funny thing was, we were all very different and all in different age range. We had a 20 something couple on their first cruise for a honeymoon, a 30 something couple that were party animals and had smuggled booze onboard. Despite my abhorance for this practice, they had a Royal Suite and we all went to their cabin for drinks one night. We're in our 40s and there was a senior couple who had cruised and traveled extensively. Despite our differences we all got along like family.

There have been other cruises where I've had similar fun meeting and spending time with those at our table. Those are among my fondest memories of cruising, I can get a great meal anytime. Everybody has their own things they cruise for and for some they couldn't do a cruise without enjoying the specialty restaurant. I guess I'm different, I don't like missing the dining room experience, even for one night. Perhaps in the future I'll get a dull table and feel differently but so far I've felt the price was worth the cost but not worth the loss of the social benefits.